The Hopkins Review

1.On our drive down from Toulouse,I practice silence. I read about men who strove to lose

affections. I bring a secondhand Lives of the Saints,two kinds of bread, a blanket, and some paints.

It is our fifth summer together. Ahead of us, red-roofed homes,narrow streets and churches, the tombs

of the martyrs. Against the southern sky, the thickoctagonal dark of a tower. The roads paved in brick.

Near the center of town, in the Place de la République,a pheasant shrieks, which is a kind of music.

2.The Rue St. Antonin. Nothing in the airbut leaves and heat, trembling above the square

like a broom pushing dust, then blownback down the avenue, the color of bone.

They store the relics here. Here they minted moneyin medieval times. This road leads to sea.

Here Fauré was born, the schoolmaster'sfifth son; he learned on the harmonium. Pilasters

flank the doorway. Outside a restaurant,we read a menu behind glass, a list of things to want. [End Page 161]

3.The bits of hair and blackened bone traveled hereon a ship, though the exact year

is unknown. We go our separate ways.You read a map. Downstairs, a shawled organist plays

one of Fauré's songs. Music out of silence.In a window, Christ rends

a piece of bread in two. A woman lights a candle, a shadow flutterson the wall. Something echoes in the rafters—

a human voice, not yours. It isn't mine.I move along and see the altar and the dark sealed shrine.

4.I hold yellow ochreto the canvas. We are sitting, both of us, en plein air.

You touch my arm. I want these leavesto be the perfect shade. My sleeves

are rolled up. The palette knife is warm. When the sunmoves, the shadows change. The one

I hold is no longer right, so I look through the box of pigmentsnext to you and rinse

the brush in a jar. I want to remember.I mix green and gold and umber.

5.I lift my glass to you. The wine's from nearby Aude.A handsome waiter showed

us how to swirl it in a glass. N'est-ce pasque c'est bon, I say, trying. A vespa [End Page 162]

is leaning on its kickstand. Windshields gleamin the midday sun. Under the blue-striped awning, you seem

unchanged as any papal portrait. Sometimes,on the signs and menus, they write the older names

for things. The patio, the wine, the conversation—we're older than we were in Boston.

6.Where we run for cover, an arc of water coursesfrom a gargoyle's mouth. The rain forces

us under a sheltered passage. Following you, I run my hand along the groutbetween the bricks. Water gurgles in the spout

then stops in the animal throats, where it spilleda moment ago, waiting to be filled

again like the holes left where men quarriedblocks of limestone. With ropes and wooden pulleys, they carried

them here, knowing the wondrous call they answeredwas the only thing that mattered.

7.I listen to Fauré. I read about the popesbefore we fall asleep. I like to paint landscapes,

though I always see you looking. We've discussedour differences. We both distrust

abstraction. Later, when we're tired of walking, let's stop in frontof some beautiful place and tell each other what we want.

There is so much to say. It may take until night.We ask someone for directions. I write [End Page 163]

them down, because I don't listen. If we reach the tower,the scrap of paper says, we've gone too far. [End Page 164]